search-pubmed
Search PubMed to retrieve medical literature based on specific queries, supporting healthcare workflows and clinical decision-making within MCP Server for Google Cloud Healthcare API.
Instructions
Search PubMed for medical literature
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| maxResults | No | ||
| query | Yes |
Implementation Reference
- Main handler function for executing the 'search-pubmed' tool. Parses arguments, uses caching, calls searchArticles, and formats response as MCP content.
async getArticles(args: any, cache: CacheManager) { const { query, maxResults } = args; const cacheKey = cache.createKey('pubmed', { query, maxResults }); const articles = await cache.getOrFetch( cacheKey, () => this.searchArticles(query, maxResults) ); return { content: [{ type: 'text', text: JSON.stringify(articles, null, 2) }] }; } - Helper function that performs the actual PubMed search using EUtils esearch.fcgi for IDs and esummary.fcgi for details, then maps to PubMedArticle format.
async searchArticles(query: string, maxResults: number = 10): Promise<PubMedArticle[]> { // Search for article IDs const searchUrl = new URL(`${this.baseUrl}/esearch.fcgi`); searchUrl.searchParams.append('db', 'pubmed'); searchUrl.searchParams.append('term', query); searchUrl.searchParams.append('retmax', maxResults.toString()); searchUrl.searchParams.append('retmode', 'json'); searchUrl.searchParams.append('api_key', this.apiKey); const searchResponse = await fetch(searchUrl); const searchData = await searchResponse.json() as PubMedSearchResponse; const pmids = searchData.esearchresult.idlist; if (!pmids.length) { return []; } // Get article details const summaryUrl = new URL(`${this.baseUrl}/esummary.fcgi`); summaryUrl.searchParams.append('db', 'pubmed'); summaryUrl.searchParams.append('id', pmids.join(',')); summaryUrl.searchParams.append('retmode', 'json'); summaryUrl.searchParams.append('api_key', this.apiKey); const summaryResponse = await fetch(summaryUrl); const summaryData = await summaryResponse.json() as PubMedSummaryResponse; return pmids.map((pmid: string) => { const article = summaryData.result[pmid]; return { title: article.title, authors: article.authors.map((a: any) => a.name), journal: article.fulljournalname, pubDate: article.pubdate, doi: article.elocationid, abstract: article.abstract, pmid: pmid }; }); } - Tool definition including name, description, and input schema for 'search-pubmed'.
{ name: 'search-pubmed', description: 'Search PubMed for medical literature', inputSchema: { type: 'object', properties: { query: { type: 'string' }, maxResults: { type: 'number' } }, required: ['query'] } }, - src/server/handlers/ToolHandler.ts:37-39 (registration)The handleList function that returns all tool definitions, including search-pubmed, to the MCP server.
private handleList = async () => ({ tools: TOOL_DEFINITIONS }); - src/server/handlers/ToolHandler.ts:92-93 (handler)Switch case in handleCall that routes 'search-pubmed' tool calls to the PubMed API handler.
case "search-pubmed": return await this.pubmedApi.getArticles(request.params.arguments,this.cache);